Billionaire breakdowns: How the 1% struggled to cope with lockdown

As lockdown eases, many all over the world have been forced to confront hard truths about themselves. Not even the buffer of billions of dollars, political power or celebrity status has been able to keep those at the top of the food chain from the same process, according to exclusive rehabilitation centre Paracelsus Recovery which saw calls and referrals to the service skyrocket over lockdown.

The £65,000 a week Swiss centre, which caters to CEOs, heads of state, royalty and Hollywood A-listers struggling with everything from substance abuse issues through to mental health and eating disorders, reported it had seen a fivefold increase in calls over lockdown.

Speaking to Evening Standard Insider, the clinic's founder Dr. Marta Ra says she had “never had such a huge number of calls at one time” - however as Paracelsus Recovery only treats one client at a time, many were put on a waiting list or connected with therapists and psychotherapists for video call sessions.

Popular for its high end cross-disciplinary approach to recovery, demand surged for Parcelsus’ treatment programme, which assigns a 15-strong team of doctors, therapists and more to a single client and provides daily eight to twelve-hour long therapy sessions in 'seven star' luxury.

With other services such as a private chauffeur, nutritional planning and a 24/7 concierge service included, Ra revealed that one particularly lavish request saw a client ask that she move her entire team into their palace.

As for the prevailing reasons why people were seeking her out over lockdown?

“The biggest one is loneliness,” she explains. “People can be lonely, so really being alone: not having a partner or not seeing our boyfriend being alone, that’s one [form of loneliness]. But you can also be very alone being stuck with your family, because you realise, ‘Who are those strangers?’ So we had people reaching out to us who felt lonely being surrounded by people, but they would have preferred nobody to be there.”

Ra adds loneliness could sometimes manifest as substance abuse and says the biggest issue people came to her for was alcoholism: “We were forced in the last month to face ourselves and for some people it was really scary. I don’t know, drinking every day, having ten packets of wine gums or having a bottle of wine.

“Loneliness can turn having one drink in the evening to having one bottle in the evening.”

A survey by Alcohol Change found that one in five people were drinking more frequently over lockdown, with one in 14 saying alcohol had made home tensions worse during lockdown.

Ra says the increase she saw was due to the fact that alcohol is “totally available” to people, whereas not everybody may have access to other drugs and addictive substances.

Though she adds that clients were still easily able to obtain substances such as cocaine over lockdown, something “very in fashion for bankers.”

She says: “I mean those people who were delivering those [substances], I was told continued to deliver [substances which were] available.”

The price of cocaine increased sharply over lockdown, with one dealer saying prices had risen by 10% to £40,000 a kilo as fewer drugs were transported into the UK and dealers faced an increased risk of being caught by police.

For some of Ra’s clients, lockdown created new addiction; for others it heightened existing problems. As Ra explains, those who had been able to hide their addiction were “totally under stress” as they were suddenly forced to “hide from somebody” as they sheltered in place with family and loved ones.

“During lockdown, people were in a special situation. They were basically either locked with themselves - they had to face themselves and they had to acknowledge certain issues, be it drinking, substance abuse or mental health - they were locked alone, or with spouses, or with spouses and children where they thought, ‘Oh my God, who have I married?’” she says.

On top of that, she explained clients suffered from anxiety over how their finances would be impacted by coronavirus, saying “their experience is the same as ours, it’s just in a different dimension.” For CEOs and other high profile executives, anxieties about the welfare of their employees also weighed heavily.

“For example, you have a company that does events or concerts - you’re bankrupt now... Of course, you have fear for all those employees that you have. They all have families, they have houses to pay off, children to send to school and those are the kinds of topics that even our ultra-high net worth individuals are faced with. The responsibility of the employees that they have, which is secondary to their own wealth.”

“Money can - some people say make your life easier - but actually, money can make your life much more difficult. Because you then have the burden of all that money and the responsibility of all that money,” she says.

“It can make things easier. It can. But it cannot make you happy,” she continues.

As Paracelsus Recovery is a health provider, it was able to stay open over lockdown.

As with other luxury services following the surge of COVID-19, great emphasis was placed on ensuring their clients’ experiences were as safe as possible - with staff members treated regularly for coronavirus as well as strict guidelines on wearing masks, handwashing, two-metre social distancing rules and no physical contact. (Clients who came to Paracelsus over lockdown were also tested for coronavirus.)

With governments easing social distancing restrictions worldwide, Ra also anticipates a “spike in divorce” amongst ultra-high net worth individuals following lockdown.

A surge in divorce rates has already been seen in China, where Xi’An and Dazhou reported ‘record-high numbers of divorce filings’ according to Bloomberg (with one Shanghai divorce lawyer saying he’d seen a 25% increase in cases) and in Saudi Arabia where Gulf News reported a 30% jump in divorce rates.

In the UK, many are already anticipating a surge of divorces to come. Speaking to the Evening Standard, divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag said she had been receiving “two dozen” calls per day: “All those people who have not been able to get to law firms like us will go completely mad.”

Co-Op Legal Services also reported a 42% rise in divorce enquiries beginning March 23 on average - though on some weeks it reported as much as a 75% increase year on year.

Ra says in the case of her clients, one of the biggest divorce factors was the fact that families were spending so much time together, which could exacerbate tensions within the relationship.

She says: “For example, our CEOs or presidents - [before lockdown they would] leave in the morning, they go to work, they have a functioning system in place... If you’re not a person who is always working from home, you spend a lot of your time with your colleagues at work and not with the one you married. And now, it’s the other way around.”

“People who spoke about divorce were really shocked [about] who they had married and they learned new aspects and sides to their partner. So, the divorce rate actually comes from either people realising they have married the wrong person, or because either or both have an increased or escalating consumption of a substance, mostly alcohol. And it just doesn’t function together,” she explains.

Once lockdown eases, all of these new problems won’t magically disappear either. Ra says people “will not lose” the issues that plagued them over lockdown - whether new or old - and thinks the next six months will be “very challenging” and “exacerbate the use of medications in some people.”

“Now it’s back to normal, but [those struggling] are now realising a new truth, or a new fact that came up during that period which they have to deal with now.”

With many set to rectify these truths against a slow shift to a new normal, Ra advises those who feel they are encountering issues "to be true with yourself. I think the first step is to acknowledge and say, ‘Okay, this is me and it’s okay.’ And then to say, ‘Okay, I will get help.’”

She urges people “not to shame or blame yourself”, which she says is the “worst” thing those struggling could do: “It’s about self-love and self-appreciation. I am not speaking about narcissism, am really speaking about self-love and taking care of yourself. Mental health is always so negatively connotated and stigmatised.”

Calling mental health a “physical condition, it’s just in the head”, she adds, “It should not be treated differently than if someone has an eyesight problem.”

For those seeking support for issues relating to substance abuse, you can contact Drinkline at 0300 123 1110, head to Drinkaware here or locate your closest treatment/counselling centre using Talk To Frank’s online map here. The NHS also has a guide for those seeking help for drug addiction, alcohol dependency, and finding mental health support services in your area here. The Samaritans can also be contacted at their 24/7 helpline at 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org.